2017-09-27Feature ArticleTrump's Recent UN Speech: "Axis of Evil" Redux President Trump's recent rant to the United Nations was a rehash of George W. Bush's post 9/11 "Axis of Evil" fantasy in the 2002 State of the Union, which ultimately took the United States down the road to disaster with the ill-fated invasioSend Letter to Editor

2017-06-01Feature ArticleTr(i)ump(h) in Saudi Arabia? As President Trump escaped a Washington shocked by his efforts to nix an FBI investigation into his campaign's alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 election, he landed in a Middle East in which endemic tension and conflict are far worse. It Send Letter to Editor

2017-04-13Feature ArticleTrump should be fighting ISIS, not Syria In a partisan age, the American media likes to report on any seemingly bipartisan agreement, and has an interest in subtly cheering any US military campaign, despite its size or scope, because it almost always leads to increased ratings. Yet in theirSend Letter to Editor

2017-04-13Feature ArticleWhat to do about North Korea? Less is more The diametrically opposed styles of President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson never have been more on display than they recently have been on North Korea, which has been testing its nuclear weapons and missiles a lot lately. The bomSend Letter to Editor

2017-02-09Feature ArticleTrump's Entry Ban Is Unneeded and Wrong Although Donald Trump had good inclinations on some foreign policy issues during his campaign and transition period--for example, staying out of unneeded brushfire wars, reexamining U.S. alliances, and pushing wealthy allies to do more for their ownSend Letter to Editor

2017-01-27Feature ArticleNeed To Reorganize US Spy Agencies On President Trump's first full day in office, he went to the CIA and promised to back the nation's spy agencies, but his time would be better spent downsizing the sprawling intelligence communitySend Letter to Editor

2017-01-18Feature ArticleThe Intelligence Community Does Need a Shake-Up Originating from the dispute over whether the Russians hacked the U.S. election and tried to influence it, rumblings have come from the Trump transition team about reorganizing the intelligence community or parts thereof. That's not a bad idea at aSend Letter to Editor

2016-11-28Feature ArticlePresidential War Is Unconstitutional The Obama administration has decided to stretch the 15-year old congressional authorization for war against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, or those harboring them, to include an illegal war against a group in Somalia--al-Shabab--that wasn'Send Letter to Editor

2016-10-13Feature ArticleBoth candidates wrong on Syria The Cold War has been over for a quarter-century and Russia is only a shadow of the Soviet Union, yet old rivalries and ways of operating die hard. The Russians care more about Syria than does the United States -- and should -- because that country iSend Letter to Editor

2016-04-19Feature ArticleTed Cruz Is Shaky on Foreign Policy Although all of this is going a bit far, Ted Cruz, with only two years of Senate experience if he is elected president, has shown his amateurish grasp of foreign policy -- a significant deficit that impaired both George W. Bush and Obama when they tSend Letter to Editor

2016-01-04Feature ArticleNot Only Trump Recruits Terrorists Some politicians, both Democratic and Republican, had criticized Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's advocacy of preventing Muslims from entering the United States, which had the odor of fascism. Send Letter to Editor

2015-12-01Feature ArticleReality and Illusion in American Politics As the crazy protracted carnival of the presidential election rolls forward with ever more outrageous rhetoric, spin, downright lies, and "gotcha" moments, it bears remembering what's on television usually has little to do with reality.Send Letter to Editor

2015-11-24Feature ArticleHillary's Plan to Combat ISIS Won't Work In contrast, to most Republican candidates, who have given us general platitudes about "getting tougher on terrorism" or vague promises to use more ground troops in Iraq or Syria, Hillary Clinton has proposed a more concrete program for battling ISISSend Letter to Editor

2015-11-17Feature ArticleThe Endless Cycle of Terrorism In the wake of the heinous attacks on civilians in Paris, the French are now prone to repeating the same mistakes the United States made after the even more barbaric 9/11 attacks. Send Letter to Editor

2015-10-06Feature ArticleRussia versus the United States in Syria The villainous Vladimir Putin is pretending to hit ISIS targets in Syria, but instead has his aircraft striking other opposition groups in that country, including what U.S.-supported "moderate" rebels still exist, according to the Obama administratioSend Letter to Editor

2015-08-10Feature ArticleScorecard on U.S. Interventionism Since 9/11, the United States has flailed away and attacked or invaded at least seven Muslim countries. (I say "at least" because, in contravention of the U.S. Constitution, American presidents now run secret overseas conflicts, including the latest Send Letter to Editor

2015-07-14Feature ArticleLessons from Obama's War in Libya In March 2011, President Barack Obama succumbed to French pressure and led the NATO alliance from behind in bombing the Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. At the time, Obama was criticized for not letting the United States remain in the forefront of eSend Letter to Editor

2015-07-01Feature ArticleLet Greece Leave the Eurozone In withdrawing from negotiations with Greece's international creditors and holding a referendum on whether Greece should adopt the further austerity required by the lenders' financial aid package, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras figuratively pullSend Letter to Editor

2015-02-17Feature ArticleExcessive Presidential War Power Barack Obama, after six months of fighting against the brutal group ISIS, has finally decided to ask for congressional approval of his war. He, like the Bushes before him, maintained that he already had the authority to go to war but only asked for CSend Letter to Editor

2015-01-05Feature ArticleIs Another Euro Crisis at Hand? If you have any spare cash laying around and need of a vacation, Chevy Chase would probably recommend that you go to Europe. The euro currency has dipped to a nine-year low against the dollar. Send Letter to Editor

2014-12-31Feature ArticleWhat Makes ISIS Tick? According to The New York Times, Maj. Gen. Michael K. Nagata, the commander of American Special Operations forces in the Middle East, is trying to figure out why the brutal Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is such a dynamic force in Iraq and Send Letter to Editor

2014-12-16Feature ArticleDoing the Indefensible: Defending Torture On the news talk shows, everyone is talking about torture -- mostly defending the Bush administration's hysterical actions after the 9/11 attacks. Granted, 9/11 was a searing experience for the general public, which wanted action in retaliation. Send Letter to Editor

2014-12-09Feature ArticleTurkey Is a Bad Ally Being a superpower has its drawbacks. One of them is being manipulated by smaller countries that know that America wants to be "Big Man on Campus" in the world, usually giving its taxpayers only vague "influence" around the globe for all the money thSend Letter to Editor

2014-11-19Feature ArticleIs Obama Weak on Foreign Policy? One reason that Barack Obama is slumping in the polls is that Republicans have successfully painted him as weak on foreign policy. Yet, during his tenure so far, Obama has used air power to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, surged American forces iSend Letter to Editor

2014-10-21Feature ArticlePublic Worry Over Remote Threats The breathless news coverage of the miniscule number of people in the United States that have so far contracted the Ebola virus has led to a typical irrational response in some quarters. Send Letter to Editor

2014-10-06Feature ArticlePresidents and the War Power President Barack Obama's claim that he doesn't need congressional authorization for his current war in Iraq and Syria is troubling. The country's founders would pass out upon hearing his claim that the post-9/11 congressional approval of force in 200Send Letter to Editor

2014-09-23Feature ArticleHomeland Security Is a Mess After an intruder was able to jump over the fence and enter the White House, the Secret Service, an agency in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is talking about augmenting security procedures and widening the White House security perimeter tSend Letter to Editor

2014-08-20Feature ArticleBlowback from Further U.S. Intervention in Iraq As Iraq faces a governmental crisis and collapses into what looks to be a three-sided civil war, Republicans even other Democrats -- members of Congress and potential presidential candidates, such as President Obama's former Secretary of State HillarSend Letter to Editor

2014-07-22Feature ArticleAmerica's Hypocrisy on Ukraine Much finger-pointing has occurred on the downing of Malaysia flight MH-17 over separatist-held territory in Ukraine. The American media -- still reflexively anti-Russian even though the Cold War has been over for almost a quarter-century and heaping Send Letter to Editor

2014-07-09Feature ArticleResolving Conflicts in Artificial States Recently, the world has focused on the fighting in Syria, Iraq, and Ukraine, all of which seem to be falling apart. Although the first two countries are in the Middle East and the last one is in the eastern part of Europe, they have the common probleSend Letter to Editor

2014-06-26Feature ArticleDick Cheney's Outrageous Statements Unbelievably, former Vice President Dick Cheney, after being wrong on every foreign policy issue for more than a decade, has again crawled out of his Wyoming cave and begun outrageously sniping at Barack Obama's performance in foreign policy.Send Letter to Editor

2014-06-16Feature ArticleNo More U.S. Intervention in Iraq Despite all of the hysteria surrounding the advances in northern Iraq of the brutal group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), no crisis exists for U.S. security, and the American people are wise in their skepticism of renewed U.S. military involvSend Letter to Editor

2014-06-10Feature ArticleWorst Effect of U.S. Afghan War As prisoners are exchanged and the combat portion of the long and exhausting U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan winds down, the brazen lethal attack on the Karachi International airport by the Pakistani Taliban graphically highlights the prinSend Letter to Editor

2014-06-03Feature ArticleU.S. Imperialism and Nigerian Schoolgirls It took awhile to find the Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram, and during that time officials from Western governments--likely the United States, Britain, and France--anonymously criticized the Nigerian government Send Letter to Editor

2013-12-05Feature ArticleCall Hamid Karzai's Bluff The ever-mercurial Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, recently called a council of the nation's tribal elders (a loya jirga) to ratify a bilateral security agreement reached with the United States governing the up to 12,000 U.S. forces that would beSend Letter to Editor

2013-09-25Feature ArticleRussia Bashing Is a Dead End What did Vladimir Putin get from the United States for saving President Obama from himself during the Syrian chemical weapons "crisis"? Only criticism and ridicule from a reflexive anti-Russian American news media. Send Letter to Editor

2013-09-17Feature ArticleSyria War Wariness Should Remain No matter how the dust up over Syria ends, President Barack Obama should be commended for seeking congressional approval for any attack. Although such a strike would have bad repercussions for the United States in the Middle East region and violate iSend Letter to Editor

2013-08-08Feature ArticleTSA: Ask the Fed for Relief... From the Fed? Americans, who recently have had their phone records vacuumed up by the National Security Agency spies, can now give the TSA their fingerprints, undergo government snooping into their backgrounds, and pay $85 to undergo this further erosion of their Send Letter to Editor